Unlike host-based network architecture, a content-centric network (CCN) is the content-based network architecture. In a CCN, a content of information is a “first-class entity” in network transmission, a name of the content replaces an Internet Protocol (IP) address, and a message is requested and transferred by using an Interest-Data message pair. Specifically, one content corresponds to one unique name. The content is divided into at least two content blocks, where different content blocks are stored in different CCN nodes. Routing and forwarding are performed based on a name of a content block. When a terminal needs to obtain a message of a content, the terminal may send multiple Interests to an intermediate router one by one to request content blocks of the content. If a node in the network stores a content block corresponding to the Interest, the node feeds back the content block to a content router through Data, and then the content router forwards the Data to the terminal. The terminal can recover the message corresponding to the content after obtaining all content blocks corresponding to the content.
In the prior art, each CCN node stores different content blocks of multiple different contents. However, it is also possible that the same content block of one content is stored on multiple different CCN nodes. Because each CCN node normally performs port range forwarding in a manner similar to broadcast when forwarding an Interest, multiple CCN nodes receiving the Interest and storing a content block requested by the Interest will all return the content block requested by the Interest, despite that only one content block is required. As can be seen, multiple CCN nodes return the same content block, which causes a bandwidth resource waste.